9 thoughts on “From Mediscare to the TPP, lies create trust-resistant political environment”

Politics was one of those careers where lying is a virtue, where you get paid to play fast and loose with the truth – hoping that you don’t get found out before you get out?
Trouble is they’re being found out earlier – and having trouble adapting.

“Even modelling peddled by the government about the TPP last week confirmed it would produce less than 0.05% additional economic growth per year for Australia.” Think it was 0.5% – one half of one per cent per year.

But the point is well-made. We are lied to frequently and consistently by politicians of all hues. And the Deputy PM thinks we do not need a federal ICAC because we have the Senate. So we are treated as stupid in addition to be lied to.

I object to your statement that Labor told the biggest lie re Medicare; I reckon that it was the truth, LNP are still trying to privatise it and therefore wreck it. It has been their modus operandi since Fraser did scrap it.

Correct. Medicare is a payment system, and the Coalition were looking to contract it out to private corporations, just like they have now done with the Immigration call centre. This is classic privatisation. In the US the role of government has now been reduced to a conduit to transfer taxpayer dollars to the corporate sector. This is done by politicians who have worked or will in the future work for the same corporations they have been feather-bedding with the privatisation scam. It’s a nice little earner for some.

Howard’s “PBs” still set a certain standard – “Children Overboard”, “Iraq/Sadam = WMDs/terror”? Any wonder Turnbull’s figuring so prominently now? How many of this mob were members of that base, “whatever it takes”, non-core promises political miasma then, learning that craft?

I’m old enough to have been covered by Medibank before the Fraser Coalition government abolished Medibank cover for anyone who had employment. Trying to support a family on a single, very low income, I would have been safer on the dole because I would have had Medibank cover for my family. A family member had to have hospital treatment during that period and although it was a government hospital the bill was quite large. Fortunately they let us pay it off in stages. Would the the Coalition abolish universal health cover again if they could? They would, they’ve been chipping away at it for ages.

Time for these perfidious parasites to be held to account. Surly those who deliberately lie to the population can be charged with an offence. It really is destroying what is left of our laughable democracy.